Russian plane carrying 224 crashes in Egypt

CAIRO: A Russian passenger plane with 224 people on board crashed in a mountainous part of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, leaving “many” dead including 17 children, officials said.

The chartered plane had taken off from the south Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh bound for Saint Petersburg and lost contact with air traffic control 23 minutes later before crashing in the restive peninsula.

The head of the Egyptian civil aviation authority Mahmud al-Zinati told AFP there were “many dead”, including 17 children. The government said in a statement that there were 214 Russian and three Ukranian passengers on board, and that 15 bodies had been recovered and transferred to a morgue so far.

The wreckage was found roughly 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the North Sinai town of El-Arish, Egyptian officials said.